The Heritage-scape UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism

by Di Giovine, Michael A.

• ISBN13: 9780739114346
• ISBN10: 0739114344
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-16
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

"Tourism today is recognized as the largest and fastest-growing industry in the world, capable of producing positive social and economic transformations especially in developing countries. Yet for UNESCO, it works in conjunction with World Heritage sites for a far more ambitious goal: to produce "peace in the minds of men" by creating a new, global identity." "Anthropologist and former tour operator Michael Di Giovine draws on ethnographic fieldwork, close policy analysis of UNESCO's major documents, and professional experiences in Southeast Asia and Europe to provide a detailed examination of UNESCO's unusual effort to harness the phenomenon of globalization and the existence of cultural diversity for the purpose of creating "peace in the minds of men" through its World Heritage program. He convincingly argues that UNESCO's designations are not impotent political performances that lead to the commercialization of local monuments for a touristic superstructure, but instead the building blocks of a new world system, an imaginative re-ordering of the world that knows no geopolitical boundaries but exists in the individual "minds of men."" "Written for social scientists, heritage and tourism professionals, and the educated traveler, The Heritage-scape is an insightful, detailed, and expansive look at the politics and processes, histories and structures, and rituals and symbolisms of the interrelated phenomena of tourism, historic preservation, and UNESCO's World Heritage Program in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and across the world."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Michael A. Di Giovine is a socio-political researcher in the department of anthropology at the University of Chicago

Table of Contents

Introduction: Traveling Across Stones that Speak	p. 1
Mediating World Heritage: Authenticity and Fields of Production in Tourism and Heritage	p. 25
The Heritage-scape: UNESCO's Globalizing Endeavor	p. 69
Unity in Diversity: The Heritage-scape's Meta-Narrative Claim	p. 119
Tourism: The Heritage-scape's Ritual Interaction	p. 145
Converting Localities into Universal Heritage	p. 187
Politics and Personalities Within the Heritage-scape: Narratives of Nature and Culture in Vietnam	p. 215
Museumification of Local Cultures: Ha Long Bay and Hoi An	p. 261
Creating the Drama of the Destination: Managing, Interpreting and Branding World Heritage Sites	p. 275
Preserving the Past: The Heritage-scape and Historic Preservation	p. 301
Problematics of Preservation: Narrative and Practice at the Angkor Archaeological Park	p. 341
Raising Awareness, Re-Presenting the Heritage-scape: Fragmentary and Reproducible Re-Presentations	p. 367
Conclusion: The Future of the Heritage-scape	p. 399
Notes	p. 431
Bibliography	p. 477
Index	p. 501
About the Author	p. 519
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.